Peanut Butter Pretzel-Stuffed Cookies

That title is a mouthful, just like the cookies themselves. I’ll make this short and sweet, like the recipe. A friend sent me a link to chocolate chip cookies that were filled with Oreos (yup!!), and I thought, “Maybe I could try something like that!” Except, instead of Oreos, I had peanut butter-filled pretzels.

This takes minimal prep, if you do what I did and buy pre-made cookie dough, and is a super tasty treat! The cookies came out perfect, and the pretzels were a delightful bite right in the middle. And the greatest part is this recipe is easily halved or multiplied!

1 package of peanut butter-filled pretzels (plenty of leftovers to eat on their own)

Preheat your oven to 350ºF (or follow the directions on cookie dough packaging). Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment. Lay out your cookie dough pieces 2″ apart on a cookie sheet. If you’re using homemade cookie dough, use a small scoop of it. Maybe about 2 teaspoons’ worth.

Flatten the cookie dough out slightly, and make a thumbprint in the middle. Place a pretzel in the center of each dough round. Then, taking another bit of cookie dough, spread it over the top of the pretzel, making sure to seal the edges a bit with the dough on bottom. The dough is super tacky, so do your best, but don’t worry if they’re not perfectly rounded. The dough will spread during baking anyway.

Bake according to the directions on packaging, but towards the upper time limit – around 12-14 minutes. This is because you’re using twice the dough you’d normally use for one cookie.

Now, here’s what I didn’t count on, for some reason, these cookies spread a lot. That didn’t occur to me as a possibility when I was using double the dough per cookie, so it’s a little sad to see the one little pretzel stuffed in the middle of a giant cookie. You could try putting 2 pretzels in there, but honestly I don’t think it’ll fit pre-bake!

Next time, I’ll use less dough or more pretzels, but as-is these were fantastic! The couple bites of pretzel were such a treat once you got to the center of the cookie, and it was still crispy, peanut butter intact. How can you go wrong with two ingredients that are just as tasty on their own? That being said, I’m going to try this again with Oreos as the center. Like, soon.